The use of security devices in retail establishments has become wide spread over the last decades. During the last forty years there have been three main methods to secure a tag on a garment with a pin. One major company Sensomatic, now owned by Tyco introduced the Tinnerman™ lock in the 70s, and then followed by a later locking mechanism for their Supertag™. Both these designs have proven to be very successful for the retailers mainly for apparel fashion goods. The third major lock in this field of security is a ball lock. Although, there are many variations in design, the general concept is that a magnet is used to pull the spring and the attached plunger to reduce pressure on the ball bearings thereby releasing the pin. The ball lock type lock has been applied to other products such as video cases and DVD cases for the security of media and software.
There are a number of difficulties associated with these types of security systems. Specifically, 99% of all security devices used in the market can be released with three different styles of detachers. Therefore a typical shopping mall in the USA may have a wide variety of security devices but they can be simply removed with one of three detachers and most probably just one. Accordingly, for someone intent on stealing the use of one universal detacher makes the theft considerably easier.